NEWARK, N.J. — The police chief of the town at the center of the George Washington Bridge lane-closing scandal described to a jury Tuesday confronting a bridge authority official over crushing gridlock and being told to contact one of the two people charged with orchestrating a political revenge scheme.
Under direct questioning from Assistant U.S. Attorney Lee Cortes, Fort Lee Police Chief Keith Bendul recounted meeting Robert Durando, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey official in charge of the bridge, in a municipal lot on the morning of Sept. 9, 2013, as traffic engulfed the town.
Bendul said Durando told him not to meet him at the Port Authority’s building in Fort Lee, a request Bendul considered “weird, cloak and dagger.” Bendul said when he upbraided Durando about the new traffic pattern that reduced three access lanes between Fort Lee and the bridge to one, Durando told him, “Have the mayor call Baroni.”
That’s a reference to Bill Baroni, the former Port Authority deputy executive director on trial on charges he closed lanes to punish Democratic Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich for not endorsing Republican Gov. Chris Christie’s re-election.
Prosecutors contend Baroni and former Christie deputy chief of staff Bridget Kelly caused the gridlock and ignored Sokolich’s pleas for help for four days that week, which coincided with the first week of school in Fort Lee.
Bendul called the traffic the worst since 9/11, when the Port Authority closed both levels of the bridge. He testified that he told Durando he was dealing with “a missing 4-year-old, a cardiac arrest” plus numerous road rage incidents stemming from the gridlock.
Bendul testified he warned Durando: “If anybody dies, I’m telling them to sue him and everyone at the Port Authority. He told me to have the mayor call Baroni.”
Cortes showed jurors emails from the Port Authority to Fort Lee officials in the weeks before the lane closures that notified the town of construction projects that might affect traffic. Bendul testified that was normal procedure that wasn’t followed for the September lane realignment.
Baroni has claimed the realignment was part of a traffic study conceived and operated by David Wildstein, a Port Authority official who pleaded guilty in connection with the scandal last year.
Sokolich also is expected to testify Tuesday.
Christie wasn’t charged and has denied advance knowledge of the scheme. But in opening statements Monday, prosecutors said Wildstein will testify that he and Baroni made Christie aware of the plan during a Sept. 11 memorial event in New York City on the third day of the four-day lane closures.
